Appellant, Alfredo Reyes-Rodriguez, is serving a prison sentence for his convictions of sex abuse crimes against three minor girls. The Court of Common Pleas of Northampton County denied Appellant's PCRA[1] petition. We granted reargument to determine, among other things, whether Appellant's trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance in failing to request an adequate jury instruction on character evidence. We now affirm the denial of PCRA relief, as Appellant failed to meet his burden of establishing that trial counsel had no reasonable basis for failing to request the jury instruction.

Appellant was charged with sexually abusing three minor half-sisters, M.A. (born in 1990), S.C. (born in 1991), and Y.R. (born in 1995). Appellant was the paramour of the girls' mother while the abuse occurred, and the victims called him their " stepfather." According to M.A., Appellant began abusing her when she was eight years old, shortly after she first met him, and while her family was living in Philadelphia. When M.A. was ten, the family moved to New York City, and Appellant continued to abuse her, two to three times per week. Appellant further continued to abuse M.A., then twelve, when the family moved to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. M.A. testified that the abuse stopped in March 2006.

S.C. met Appellant when she was eight or nine years old. She testified that he began abusing her when she was ten years old and living in Philadelphia. Appellant continued to abuse her after the family moved to Bethlehem.

Y.R., who was nine years old when she went into foster care, testified that Appellant abused her while they lived in Bethlehem. On March 17, 2006, S.C.'s boyfriend anonymously reported S.C.'s abuse to Child Protective Services. His report led to the removal of the ...

Our website includes the first part of the main text of the court's opinion.
To read the entire case, you must purchase the decision for download. With purchase,
you also receive any available docket numbers, case citations or footnotes, dissents
and concurrences that accompany the decision.
Docket numbers and/or citations allow you to research a case further or to use a case in a
legal proceeding. Footnotes (if any) include details of the court's decision. If the document contains a simple affirmation or denial without discussion,
there may not be additional text.

Buy This Entire Record For
$7.95

Download the entire decision to receive the complete text, official citation,
docket number, dissents and concurrences, and footnotes for this case.